Tuesday, July 22, 2008

UK Snippet #1

Rather than one long post, maybe I'll break things up about my trip, which is now a few weeks gone.

The first leg of my trip was spent with Sara. At some point in the past, Sara and I started a running joke about being old spinsters, living in the same house, with lots of cats. We'd have a front porch on which we'd sit, probably holding a cat. Or a shotgun. Maybe both. We'd wear wide-brimmed straw hats and have a regular flow of visitors from our pool of 'boys'. It would sort of be like Thelma and Louise, without the crime and the plummet off a cliff at the end. Or the fake Southern accents. Well, Sara would have a Southern accent because she's from the South of England. That's entirely different though. I would not have a fake Southern accent, English or otherwise.

Anyhoo...During round one of the trip, we had one mind-numbing experience after another. Normally, the term 'mind-numbing' suggests the kind of rush one might experience while riding a roller coaster, then BASE jumping, then skydiving. Well, those things pale in comparison to what WE did! Here's a summary:

Day 1

-I arrive at stoopid o'clock in the morning, am fetched by Sara from the airport, and driven to her house
-Cup of tea (after getting the tour)
-Sit on couches
-Watch Top Gear
-Fall asleep
-Wake up
-Watch Top Gear
-Cup of tea
-Eat
-Have chocolate
-Deano came over, so we went to the pub
-Sleep

Day Two

-Cup of tea
-Breakfast
-Drive to Deano's for bike riding
-Post-ride cup of tea
-Back to Sara's
-Eat
-Sit on couches
-Watch Top Gear
-Fall asleep
-Wake up
-Watch Top Gear
-Cup of tea
-Have chocolate
-Drive to Biff's
-Ride
-Cup of tea
-Eat
-Sleep


Day Three

-Eat
-Cup of Tea
-Ride with Biff
-Drive to Sara's
-Sit on couches
-Cup of tea
-Watch Top Gear
-Eat
-Have chocolate
-Sleep

Day Four

-Eat
-Cup of tea
-Watch Top Gear
-Drive to the Fisk house
-Cup of Tea
-Eat
-Ride
-Beer
-Eat
-Pub quiz
-Cup of tea
-Sleep

Now, you may have noticed a bit of a pattern leading up to the arrival at Rob and Chris'. In summary, it involved eating, tea, chocolate, Top Gear, and napping. During the third night, the spinster conversation came up again. Sara observed that we were experiencing a preview of our future lives.

Fantastic!

The only things missing were the cats, straw hats, and the front porch. Bring on spinsterhood.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The US CBP-Confuse, Befuddle, and Perplex

CBP is supposed to stand for Customs and Border Protection, but after today I have decided that the title of this post is more fitting.

I've just come back from another trip north of the border. Now, we have this customs broker in Canada that the company works with. They are great. They know their stuff, they give us detailed, step by step directions for every aspect of our border crossing, back and forth. They answer their phones at all hours of the day and night, even on weekends. In typical Canadian fashion, they are overwhelmingly nice. They've never steered us wrong.

Equally as adept at their job is the Canadian border agency. I drive up to the commercial truck window, stretch my arm out of it's socket in order to hand over paperwork to the guard who is at 18-wheeler height, answer a couple of questions, drive around and go inside for a stamp on some paper, and leave. Easy peasy.

On the opposite end of the scale of international bureaucratic efficiency, is the US CBP. I now believe that the CBP is like the Internal Revenue Service. A recent complication with the IRS made me realize that the right ass cheek doesn't know what the left ass cheek is doing. In the end though, it's still an ass. This now applies to the CBP, as well.

I've done border crossings for work at least once for the past 4 summers. With the help of the brokers, I've never had a major hassle. The longest it's ever taken me to cross has been maybe an hour, on a busy day. Today, I pulled up to the booth that was too high for my car, actually had a friendly border guard (an extreme rarity), and presented my paperwork as usual. He told me he had to double check something. I explained what my previous experience has been: they put a little stamp on this one document that proves to Canada that I have returned to the US with my cache of bikes, et al, still in the trailer. This guard told me that no, they keep that document and hand me over something else.

During no other crossing, has this been the case.

He then refers me inside to talk to one of the agents there. She then tells me that I need some blahdeeblah form blah blah 4455 blah, and a blahblahblah manifest, and a US broker to import me (!?). She wanted to know when the last time I crossed was. I said May. She looked at me with utter shock.

"This form is still good, but you also need these others. Didn't they tell you this then?", she asked.

"No. And they didn't tell me when I crossed HERE two days ago, either."

"You crossed HERE!?", she exclaimed.

"Yes, and they never told me this. Nor has any one else at any border crossing between here and Vancouver in the last 4 years."

"Well, they should have. This has been a policy since last summer.", she told me.

So, she then proceeded to tell me that they were going to admit me back into the US this time, but that she made a notation in 'My File' indicating that they issued a one time exception since no one informed me of this, but in the future if I try to cross without the blahblahblah, and the blah blah, and a brokblahblah, that I would not be permitted to come back into the US, and I would be sent back to Canada.

After hearing that, it occurred to me that this wouldn't be so bad. I digress...

These are the people who are responsible for making sure that our Freedom(TM) is protected at our international borders; to defend our country from all of those Canadians who are sneaking across and taking all the luxurious jobs like toilet cleaning, and hospital bio-hazard disposerer. I feel quite sure at this point that it wouldn't be very difficult to smuggle just about anything into the States given how completely oblivious to THEIR OWN policies the CBP are, and the fact that at nearly every crossing I've been told a different story, or given a different stamp on the paperwork, or had to open the trailer before going IN to Canada, or yelled at, or...The list goes on.

I'm nervous every time I move back and forth. Not because I'm guilty of anything, but because I never know what sort of idiot I'm going to have to deal with.

Monday, July 14, 2008

The Usual Routine Plus

So I got to do some more downhilling over the weekend. Two runs, anyway. I was too busy helping other people have fun to do any more than that.

Yesterday was a bit of a washout, so DaveO and I packed up early to start driving home. I'm still a bit on UK time, so I knew I wasn't going to drive straight through, and I opted to stop West of NYC for the night in a town that's not too far away from where I used to live in Jersey.

Since I'm making a concerted effort to eat better and consume veggies every day, I've eliminated the usual search for tuna sandwiches from Quizno's and Subway in favor of spinach salads. With that in mind, I stopped at a grocery store in town here to find their salad bar. Every grocery store in the world seems to have a salad bar these days, except of course for the ShopRite in Clinton, NJ. They had some pre-made jobbies, but they looked horrible and I'd rather go out to the closest field and munch on some tall grass than eat iceberg lettuce. I wrote off the idea and prepared to exit the store and go over to the Quizno's, when I remembered the Jetboil.

I obtained it from a friend of DaveO's who works for Jetboil as an engineer. The first time I saw Dave make hot tea earlier this year during a cold event, I immediately wanted one. I thought of all the Yorkshire tea I could consume on the road with one of those. I could finally become a real caffeine junkie after all these years of not drinking coffee.

The Jetboil was packed into the trailer sometime in May, and after plans to camp during my Indiana trip were flooded out, I didn't have a chance to use the Jetboil as I'd hoped.

Until last night.

Failing in the salad bar department, the store did redeem itself somewhat by having cans of my favorite organic lentil veggie soup. I bought some, and a can opener, and had a sense of excitement about an addition to my usual hotel routine, which normally goes as follows:

-Find hotel
-Talk desk clerk into cheap rate
-Check in
-Drive rig around to the side door
-Sneak dog into hotel
-Pee
-Feed dog
-Switch on TV
-Flop on bed
-Open laptop
-Eat tuna sandwich

The rest of the night consists of catching up on Cheeky, emails, chats to anyone who is around, tv watching, dog walking, and sleep.

Last night, I changed it up a bit and instead of the tuna, I cooked hot soup in the Jetboil. And it was ace. It took about 2 minutes on very low heat.

I now have ideas about cooking pasta, and veggies, and lots of other healthy things. I think this will become particularly handy next week when I'm back in Quebec. Despite having practiced my French, I'm still not up to speed.

Hopefully I won't set off any fire alarms, or burn the hair off my hands during ignition.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

7 Pounds in 5 Weeks

I'm overdue for another long post, which I'll get to at some point. For now, I'm posting to make known a mission that I've undertaken with Sara the Randle. We've decided to lose 7 pounds by Singlespeed Worlds, which is in 5 weeks' time. It's a reasonable goal, and it will involve much bike riding and eating right.

Of course, between now and then is the little issue of work. The bulk of my August will be spent in Wisconsin for the Trek dealer show. My riding will be somewhat limited, but I will be literally sweating my ass off, so that should help.

Weigh in was this morning. There's no way in hell I'm posting how much I weigh, but I will indicate how much I've lost when I have a chance to step on a scale next. Maybe I'll borrow mom and dad's scale for a bit, in the interest of consistency.

Bring on the carrot sticks!